Revelation's Timeline: Tribulation to Eternity Explained

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, it's good to have everybody back for yet another taping session. You know, it's amazing how fast these months fly by, isn't it? First thing we know, it's time for another taping and another four programs. So we're glad for all of you that we're able to make it in, and we always trust the Lord brings you in and takes you home safely, because we know quite a few of you drive quite a distance. And for those of you joining us in television, how we appreciate your letters, your phone calls. My wife and I were saying the other day, it would be kind of exciting to know just once how many are really watching. And she says, no, it would scare you to death. So maybe it's just as well we don't. But anyway, we appreciate your letters and your financial help. After all, we have no one underwriting us. We aren't connected with any organization. We are just lay people, and my wife and I just sort of handle everything alone except for the gal that does our bookkeeping, of course. But we do. We appreciate hearing from you by either the phone or by letter. Now I just told the class as we were waiting for the cameras to get ready, I've been betwixt and between whether to go on and finish chapter 21 and 22, or whether I should appropriately at this time go back and review more or less what we've covered in the book of Revelation and up until this very moment I really haven't made up my mind. But I think maybe it would be well to go back and review our timeline. We'll just put a few things on the board. We weren't going to take time to chase down all the Scriptures. We've certainly done enough of that. And I even kind of withhold reviewing as much as I do on this particular program because of those who have received the tapes. Because after all, if they want to review, all they have to do is pull out a tape and go back and look at it. But I know that there are far more people joining us now on television than those that are receiving the tapes. So for the benefit especially of our television audience, we're going to make a quick review of the time period that has elapsed concerning the book of Revelation, which of course would be the seven years of Tribulation followed by the thousand year reign of Christ, which we call the Millennium. So I'll go to the board and just, like I said, for sake of review, point out some of these aspects of these 1 ,007 years. Now of course we've been coming out of the church age, and we know that the church which is the Body of Christ, and that's the way Paul usually refers to it, the church which is His Body, and that of course is what counts. It doesn't matter whether we're a member of a particular denomination or not a member. What counts is are we a member of the Body of Christ? Have we experienced His salvation? Then of course in order for all of the things that are connected with prophecy, and we've tried to hammer that home as long as we've been teaching even back in the Old Testament, that everything concerning prophecy is primarily concerned with the nation of Israel. There is nothing in prophecy concerning the church, and we want to get very plainly put. No prophecy associates itself with the church, but all prophecy is directed to and connected with the nation of Israel. Consequently, since the church age has been more or less a parenthetical period of time slipped in between the prophetic program, Gentile in nature, as over against prophecy being with Israel, and of course most of the, if not all, of the church age basic doctrines come from the pen of the Apostle Paul. So it only follows that the Body of Christ has to be removed, and of course Paul alone, and I've had a few people write some of these questions concerning the rapture, and the first thing I can understand is that they have no comprehension of the fact that the church is strictly a Pauline revelation. In other words, you can find nothing concerning the church in the Old Testament. It's just not back there. You can find nothing concerning the Body of Christ in the Gospels. It's just not in there. And it isn't until the Apostle Paul comes on the scene then, and has this great revelation from the ascended and glorified Lord, that now since Israel has rejected her Messiah, she has rejected the King and the Kingdom, and the opportunity of course of evangelizing the nations, which was in the offing, God sets Israel aside, puts her out into a dispersion that we know and we've witnessed has lasted now these 1900 and some years, and turns to the Gentiles completely without the nation of Israel. And that's a concept that very few people seem to understand, that the Body of Christ is predominantly Gentile in nature. It is not associated with prophecy. It is not associated with the promises given to Israel, but it is that unique outpouring of the grace of God upon the Gentile masses, that they can experience salvation, they become a child of God by virtue of faith plus faith alone in the Gospel, and thereby we become members then of the Body of Christ. Israel in the meantime has now spent the last 1900 and some years according to the Old Testament, as well as according to Paul, in a spiritual blindness that has lasted to this very day. And even though they may seem religious in their practice of Old Testament Judaism, yet basically they are blind to so much of the spiritual truth, especially concerning their Messiah the Christ. Now I know I have Jewish people listening to my program, and I say that with that in mind very kindly, that they are blinded. They cannot comprehend these things unless of course the Spirit opens their understanding. So anyway, since the Body of Christ, what we now know as the Church Age, is strictly a Pauline revelation, you won't find it anywhere else except in the letters of Paul, and so Paul is the one in I Corinthians chapter 15, verse 51, who says, "...Behold, I show you a mystery, which up until his time had been kept secret in the mind of God." And we'll be looking at all that in future programs, and we can just show it so clearly from the Scriptures that these things were kept secret in the mind of God, until He saw fit to reveal it to this Apostle. And so then he says, "...I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, we shall not all die, but we shall all be changed." In other words, when the Body of Christ is finally finished, and the last one has been brought in, there is going to be an outcalling of those who are alive and remain by a virtue of a change from this body to the new glorified body, and of course all those who have died in Christ in the Body will be resurrected with their new body. Then of course we come to God picking up where He left off with the nation of Israel, and we call this Daniel's 70th week, or the final 7 years of Israel's original 490 year prophecy, which of course goes back to Daniel chapter 9. But we have to understand that only 483 years were fulfilled by the time Christ was crucified, and that left 7 years unfulfilled of the 490. Now of course, since the church age has been sandwiched in between the 483 whereupon He was crucified, and now the church is gone, God is now in a position to bring about that final 7 year period that still belongs to the prophetic 490 years. And that of course is what the whole book of Revelation is about, the unfolding of this final 7 years of God's dealing with the human race in general, but in particular with the nation of Israel. Then as we found in the book of Revelation, tying it all in with Daniel, that the very opening event of this final 7 years will be the appearance of the Antichrist, and as such He is going to sign this 7 year treaty with Israel. Now of course with the treaty that has been signed between Israel and the Palestinians there has been a lot of confusion I guess. Some people think this is the peace treaty, which the Antichrist now can come on and they go back to Daniel chapter 9 verse 25 where it says, "...and he shall confirm." Well that may or may not be, because so far as I am concerned this peace treaty that they have just signed is nothing but an agreement to agree or disagree, and I don't think it will hold much water for very long. But whatever, we know that the Antichrist is going to come on the scene, and I always emphasize that he will be an ordinary human being. Maybe I shouldn't say ordinary, but he will be born of woman, he will be flesh and blood, but he's going to be I think much like Judas. He's going to be used of Satan to fulfill all these satanic aspirations. And so he'll come on the scene as a tremendous political manipulator. He's going to be a charismatic type individual. Now by that I mean he's going to have the ability to just manipulate people, and he's going to have that kind of a personality. He's going to be able to walk in to almost any kind of a summit meeting, and command their attention. They are going to listen to him, and consequently he's going to bring himself to the place of having the power of making that peace treaty with Israel in the Middle East. By the time he gets back to his headquarters, which I feel will be some place in Europe, we're suddenly going to realize that a lot of other things are taking place at these very same opening days of the seven years. Not only will the Antichrist make his appearance, but so will the two witnesses that are going to come to the streets of Jerusalem, and they are going to begin the witness of Jehovah God to Israel, whom of course the Antichrist has now given permission to build the temple. And temple worship will come back on the scene, and of course if any of you have been to Israel lately, you've probably even gone to the Temple Institute where the Jewish religious element has everything ready for the reinstitution of the temple worship. They have all the garments hanging on mannequins. They have all the instruments that they'll need for sacrificial worship, and all they're waiting for is the permission to build their temple. And so somehow or other, we don't know how, whether the Mosque of Omar will be compromised and they can build a temple or sorts of a temple close to it, or whether by some act of war or nature the Mosque of Omar will be destroyed, we don't know. But we do know that Israel is once again going to have her temple and temple worship for the first three and a half years, and the Antichrist is going to put his stamp of approval on that, and Israel of course will just be so elated to think that they now have their temple back, because Israel without the temple is just about like a flat tire you might say. They just are hopeless, and so this is their anticipation. Everything that you read concerning things in Israel tonight are with that in mind, that they are looking now for their Messiah. Of course now they are looking for Him to come the first time, not the second time, because they don't recognize that Christ was the Messiah. But anyway, as the two witnesses will make their appearance, we picked that up of course in Revelation chapter 10, and they will be witnessing primarily to the Jewish nation, and out of that witnessing I feel the 144,000 young Jews will come on the scene. They will be sealed to now encircle the globe, and they are going to carry not the gospel of grace as we have had back here in the church age, but they are going again back to the very basic message that John the Baptist instituted, that Christ and the Twelve preached, and that is the gospel of the Kingdom, which means the King is coming, and that certainly is good news for that period of history. Well various and sundry other things, and you will remember if you were with us, we feel that the Russian or the Northern Confederation of Nations will invade Israel shortly after the treaty was made, contrary to the Antichrist's idea, and God will destroy them on the hills of Israel, so that will be a quick removal of those nations as enemies of Israel. Then as you move on through this seven year period, we know that as the seals were fulfilled or brought to fruition, there is going to be one-fourth of the human population destroyed, and then by the time we come to the midpoint, these two witnesses will be killed, and they are going to lay on the streets of Jerusalem for three days, and then they will be brought back to life, and the whole world, Scripture says, is going to see them then ascend. Now that of course has been made possible by technology, and by our satellite system of communication. Then at this midpoint, the Antichrist is going to come back from his headquarters in Europe, and now he is going to come into the temple, not to make peace with Israel, but just the opposite. He is going to defile their temple, and he is going to force the Jew to worship Him as their God. And of course this is just going to be anathema to a Jew, and so consequently they are going to come under the horrible persecution of this man. He is going to bring everything in His power to bear. Now again another thing that complicates it even more is that Satan will be cast out of heaven. Yes, he has access to heaven tonight, and he is going to be cast out, and the Scripture says he is going to pull all the plugs so to speak. He is going to do everything that he possibly can, because he only has three and a half years left, and he knows his time is short. Also the Scripture refers to this final three and a half years as the period of the wrath of God. So I always have to point it out this way, that is going to be a double-barreled unloading upon this planet. On the one hand from the satanic forces, and on the other hand from a righteous God. And you and I as human beings cannot comprehend what that last three and a half years is going to be like. I mean you can look at the horrible pictures on the news from Yugoslavia and other areas of the world. You can reflect back on the Holocaust as awful as it was, yet none of it put together is going to come close to those final three and a half years. I mean we just can�t comprehend it, and the reason I say that is because Jesus Himself said it in Matthew 24, that these are going to be days of great tribulations such as never were before, nor ever could be again. And so this is what the old planet has in its prospect, is the final outpouring of not only the wrath of God, but also the wrath of Satan as he hopes seemingly to get back at God one way or another. Then of course as those various judgments and cataclysmic events come to pass, never lose sight that the whole reason for all this is to pay off Satan�s mortgage, which we saw back there in Revelation chapter 5 when he saw the scroll, which was really a mortgage and they peeled off the seals. And that paying off the mortgage is really the whole scope of the tribulation, and as a result then the planet will be lifted from under the curse, or the curse will be lifted from the planet, however you want to put it. And as a result then of defeating Satan and lifting the curse, the planet will then be made for a renovation project, which God will of course accomplish in short order, and make it ready for the Kingdom. When He will return, set up His Kingdom here on earth, and it�s going to be glorious. The earth will be brought back as it was in the Garden of Eden, not just in one little small area, but the whole planet will revert back to a Garden of Eden situation, and it will be glorious. Then as we have now consummated these seven years, Christ returns, destroys the remaining armies and all those that are still in rebellion, and the earth is brought back to a condition as it was in Eden, and now comes the thousand years. Now I always like to remind my classes, we know that the Kingdom has been spoken of, it�s been prophesied all the way up through the Old Testament. The coming of the King and the Kingdom, when Israel shall reign gloriously. But it isn�t until we get to Revelation that we have a time frame attached to it of a thousand years. The Old Testament speaks of forever. This Kingdom is going to be eternal. Well then we have to reconcile some things, and why does Revelation speak of a thousand years? Well the reason it has to be limited to a thousand years is that as a result again of all the events of the Tribulation most of the world�s population are going to lose their lives. Those who have become believers by virtue of the preaching of the 144,000 will be martyred, and they will be resurrected at a later time. But there are still going to be survivors. By the time we come to the end of the seven years there are going to be survivors, some of whom have heard the message, have become believers as Gentiles predominantly, and they�re going to be the seed stock of Gentile nations going into the Kingdom. We also remember that at the midpoint of the Tribulation a whole remnant of Israel went down into the mountains, southeast of Jerusalem. Matthew 24 again, Jesus Himself speaks of it. And the remnant of Israel for the most part will be in this protected area, and God is going to take care of them even as He did the nation of Israel in the 40 years in the wilderness for three and a half years. Then at His second coming they finally become believers, the nation as a whole, and they will be then the seed stock of the nation of Israel. So now coming into the Kingdom with Christ ruling and reigning as King, you have the Gentile believers who have survived the Tribulation and are going to be the seed stock of Gentile nations. This remnant of Israel that will be saved by virtue of recognizing their coming Messiah now, even though it�s the second time, they will be the beginning of the nation of Israel. So this thousand year period of time is going to be a period of tremendous population again, a population explosion, because you see there�s no sin, there�s no death, Satan is locked up. It�s going to be tremendous prosperity, tremendous food production, ideal climate. Like I said, it�s going to be the Garden of Eden. So naturally follows that there�s going to be a tremendous increase in population from all of the Gentile nations as well as from the nation of Israel. But even though these newborn children coming from these believers will have no opportunity for out and out rebellion, because there is no satanic force operating, and Christ is going to rule with an absolute benevolent power as King, nevertheless these children will all be born with the same old Adamic nature that their parents were born with. So at the end Revelation tells us that Satan is going to have to be released for a little season. Why? When we�ve got him locked up and everything is going so beautifully, why let him come back? Well this whole new generation of children who have never had to make a choice for or against God, will have to be brought to a place of choosing. They have to exercise their free will, even as all of us had to do. There is only one way you can give a choice, and that is there has to be more than one option. And so Satan has to be brought back for the sole purpose now then of giving all these new generations of children who have never before had to make a choice. Satan comes back and is given full opportunity again to present his options, and just like he did to Eve in the garden. It will have to be that same type of a temptation, because the Kingdom has been so glorious. Who could want anything different? Who could want anything better? Well you see Eve had it that good, but what was his ploy? What did he tempt her with? You can be like God. And the same thing I think is going to happen here. Satan is going to come back, and he�s going to tempt those new generations with the whole concept, �Well yes, you�ve got it perfect, but you�re still not God. Wouldn�t you like to be like God?� And so they will follow him hook, line, and sinker, and then immediately when they�ve made their choice, then God will wipe them off the face of the planet, and that�s the end then of time as we know it. That�s the end of the thousand years, and then as we saw in our last program, after that has ended, now it�s time to bring everyone to their place of answering to what they have done in the flesh, and we have the Great White Throne for unbelievers. The believers have already had their point judged, or rewards given out shortly after the Rapture, but now the Great White Throne is bringing every lost individual to a place where he will see the record, and of course he will go to his doom, and then of course the question always comes up in my classes, �Do you mean there�s going to be degrees of punishment?� Absolutely there will be. You take the poor innocent person who has lived a good life and thought he was doing all right, and he�s naturally not going to suffer as much as the vicious criminal and what have you. So when someone asks the question, they say, �Well where do you get that?� Well you remember when Jesus was in His earthly ministry and He was ministering up in some of the cities in Galilee, Capernaum in particular, He said, �Woe unto you of Capernaum! It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for you in the judgment day.� Because He said, �Had Sodom and Gomorrah witnessed the things that you�ve witnessed, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.� Now in other words what was He meaning? Well had Christ gone into Sodom and Gomorrah and performed the miracles and presented God in the flesh as Capernaum had Him, God says Sodom and Gomorrah would have returned to Himself, but Capernaum didn�t. Then He gives also the other illustration of Tyre and Sidon, the same way. He said they would have repented, wicked cities as they were, but Israel didn�t even though they had the Messiah in the very midst. So that will be the great white throne, and then as we saw that sends the lost to their doom in the lake of fire, which is not hell. In our next program now we�re going to be going into chapter 21, and after all of this is consummated, we�ve come through the Kingdom Age, and we�ve seen the rejecters, the rebels all taken off the scene and sent to their doom. Then as we�ll see in our next program now in chapter 21, it�s an amazing statement. We�ll pick it up again in the next program, but just to look at it for a moment. I saw a new heaven, and a new earth. So that means that the Kingdom is going to be interrupted, it�s going to be lifted off the planet long enough for a whole new planet to come on the scene. I think I have the reason for that, but for now our time is gone. We have to wind this one down, but just be aware now that this planet by the time we come to the end of the thousand year reign will have used up its usefulness, if I may put it that way. We�re going to see then in the beginning of the next program what happens to it. In place of it will come then this new heaven, new earth, and all the aspects I feel that were in the Kingdom here on this Garden of Eden earth will just simply go right on into then the new heavens and the new earth, which will be a carbon copy I think of the Kingdom as we�ve seen it here in Revelation and the Old Testament. But that of course will then be eternity, and again we�re going to spend eternity not floating on a cloud, but in a Kingdom on a new earth.